Ride
by KnightedRogue
Summary: Han teaches Leia how to fly a swoop bike. Rated for explicit language and sexual content.
1. Chapter 1

_Author's Note: "Ride" is a kind of post-script to_ Mighty Things, _but no knowledge of that fic is needed to have fun with this story. "Ride" is in two parts and contains filthy language and explicit sexual content._ _It is also my fiftieth posted story on FFN and I thought I'd celebrate with utter depravity. Sound good? Good!_

* * *

 _Ride_

* * *

"Yeah," Han Solo said, eyeing the pieces of machinery ahead of him with tempered glee. "Yeah, those'll do nicely."

Barren, rocky terrain crunched under his boot as he sauntered to the swoop bike hovering meters ahead of them. A beautiful sky perched above: wide, blue and expansive. Heat suffused the atmosphere around them, a dry crackling heat that edged over the exposed skin of her upper arms like tidal waves. Red canyons bookended the open land in front of them, creating incredible natural splendor against the backdrop of the wide open sky.

Leia Organa had to smile at her husband's tone: not childish, not exclamatory, but youthful. Excited.

He looked magnificent in the pure sunlight, the brown-red of the clay mesas a fine backdrop for his prepossessing silhouette. Broad shoulders, defined biceps, his hair blowing in the wind; it was enough to ground her ribs into nothing, to heat the blood in her veins. And he walked to the swoop bike as if he knew the kind of image he presented. A swagger: definitive; she hesitated to think _mouthwatering_ but, well …

 _He was._

At thirty-seven years old, he was the most magnificent thing on this planet and, _god,_ he was in his element here.

"They're good rigs," he shouted back to her and she smiled at him, strolling to his side.

"I'll take your word for it," she murmured. "Is this like when the _Falcon_ 's hyperdrive is a good rig?"

Breaking down at inopportune moments? Reliable most of the time, with that hidden thrill of danger that meant every trip could take three times longer than intended?

"Nah, you don't understand," he said, running his hand over the leather seat with a kind of parental pride. "She could win a race or two, I bet, with the right person at the controls."

She smiled. "You mean _you."_

"Yeah, me. In my heyday." He walked around the bike, hand still affixed to the seat, until the swoop hovered between them. "Luke could probably still do some damage on this get-up."

"Luke?"

"I'm telling you, put the kid on this bird here and she'd take the Boonta. Easy."

"I thought you said the Boonta Eve was for podracing?"

Han grinned, delicious, devilish. " _Exactly."_

Leia tried to picture it, tried to imagine a universe in which Luke Skywalker, the last scion of the Jedi, gave up his birthright of power to join the podrace circuit on a swoop bike. "I'm afraid you're out of luck, Solo. Your _sure thing_ is off meditating about the nature of good and evil."

"I dunno," he said, patting the bike, softly, like a pet.

She loved this side of him. _Loved_ it. The mechanical wizard, the orphaned kid whose only goal in life was to fly and fly _fast._ It was a part of him he held close to the vest, that he'd let her see sparingly before they'd been trapped aboard his ship for a month while en route to Bespin. Boyish glee, unmanly excitement; like a true north he only saw in his internal compass.

"Well then," she said, hefting a helmet in her right hand and tossing it to him. "Show me how, general."

It'd been six months since their career-ending jaunt to Sluis Van. Or was that career- _founding_ jaunt? Somehow the trip had taken their priorities—careers: military, political, _decent_ —and made them into independent agents of the NRI. And Leia was still shocked when she remembered what had happened, the chaotic viscera of events that had brought them here. Head spinning changes, self-realization on a massive level, confrontations with each other about who they were individually and who they were as a couple. A married couple, no less.

But it was good.

It was _so good._ Good to work with Han like this. Good to use her instincts, the skills she'd earned through hard work fighting a hopeless, bloody war. Good to see the difference in the eyes of the people they saved, the good they were doing with their hands and brains and intuition.

She finally felt _free._

Their assignments came through to them with bare spots between, times to explore the far reaches of the galaxy, themselves, each other. Last week they had taken down an Imperial-allied hyperdrive manufacturer who had been selling the New Republic inept parts, leading to a string of unexplained ship failures that had stumped Starfleet Command. And since they'd been out here, on Clairat, the mecca of swoop-racing, Leia had inquired about Han's mysterious reputation as a teenaged swoop-bike prodigy in these parts.

He'd grinned, checked his comm, and brought her out here to learn to ride.

"Alright, Organa," he said, setting down his own helmet. "Climb up. You need a lesson first."

Leia was skeptical. She'd ridden speeder bikes before, of course, and hadn't she proved to him that she was fully capable of flying anything he could, albeit with less finesse?

"These babies can go 550, maybe 570 kilometers an hour," he explained, eyeing her with careful patience. "You'll be a mess on the side of a canyon if I don't give you some pointers first."

Leia raised her eyebrows but relented, strolling to the swoop Han had petted and hopping astride it. She reached out a hand for Han to pass her the helmet he'd dropped on the ground, expecting his usual insistence on her own safety gear even as he adamantly refused his own.

"Yeah, _no_ ," he said. "You're not gonna go fast enough for that yet. Move forward."

She gave him a look that she hoped told him how suspicious she found his desire to sit behind her for a racing lesson, but relented. The swoop's saddle was intended for one human by design; as Leia flexed her legs and moved her hips forward, Han climbed behind her and settled with a low grunt, legs pressing into the backs of hers, knee behind knee, snug and dangerous in their fit.

"Why do I have the feeling that you will take advantage of the situation?" Leia asked, turning her head slightly to mock-glare at his shoulder.

His left hand smoothed across her stomach, igniting the gold ring on his finger with the light of the red dwarf star above them, against the nerf-hide leather of her sleeveless vest, above the spark of internal light his ring always drew from her. _Mine,_ it whispered and Leia knew exactly what would happen here today. She'd be lucky to last through the lesson.

"Probably because I'm going to take advantage of the situation," he said, lowering his voice to his deepest register.

 _Of course you will,_ she thought, trying to suppress the instinct to shiver against his voice. He knew what he did to her when he dropped his tone. This was little more than a thinly-veiled attempt to touch her and whisper in her ear, to say ridiculous, sexy things under the guise of instruction. As if he was barred from doing such things in real life. As if he didn't _already_ do such things in heated, chilled, invigorated, sweet, hilarious, intense moments on a regular basis.

 _My husband: the eternal sexual opportunist,_ she thought.

"Alright then," she said, and pressed her hips back against his, the slightest of thrusts to ostensibly prepare for flight. "Show me what to do, Slick."

His left hand tightened on her stomach, his right sweeping beneath her arm to point to the knob between the hand-grips. "Throttle."

She brushed her hand against the knob, felt the swoop kickstart beneath her. Warm vibrations echoed between her legs, golden thrills at the junction of her thighs. She pressed her inner thighs against the metal between them instinctively, like she would if it were Han's hand. Or mouth. Or hips.

She cleared her throat. "Throttle," she echoed. "Steering?"

His free hand grabbed her right and set it on the hand-grips. "There," he said, then crossed her body to lift her left to the other set. "And there. Standard steering. Makes a forty degree turn with a snap. Anything more than ninety degrees and you'll have to lower the thrust."

"Where's the thrust?"

Low chuckle, dark, devious. Like seduction itself. "You already found 'em," he said, almost laughing. "On the swoop body next to your legs."

 _Damn it,_ she thought with a smile. _Got me there._

And then, as if she hadn't understood his meaning, his right hand slipped between her thigh and the body of the speeder, twisting his palm to lie flat against the fabric just above her knee.

"Here," he muttered. "You wanna go _fast,_ you squeeze here."

This was already spinning wildly out of control; if she let him continue to touch her like this, she was going to kill the lifters, set the swoop down, step off and pull him by the hair to the ground. He was driving her absolutely crazy. And while she doubted he'd mind skipping the flying lesson, Leia knew Han wanted the thrill of a long, drawn-out, seduction. She'd long become accustomed to his fits of foreplay, the way he liked to string her along, see her unravel.

Power: a tradable commodity between them in sex.

But Leia was just as experienced in this game as he was by now, and she knew how to drive him crazy, too. She slapped his hand away, feigning discipline where she had little to spare. Denial, both Han's undoing and what drove him on. He wanted to work for this. As long as she was comfortable—and whatever else he made her, she was _always_ comfortable—he'd have to prove himself worth her regard.

"Brake?" she asked, proud of the lazy tone in her voice, the one that told him she knew very well what he was trying to do, that he was being successful, but that she refused to give it up that easily.

 _You have to work harder than that, my love._

He moved his palm to the hand-grip: squeezed her stomach with his other. Then he nudged her right foot with his. "Here," he said. "We're gonna take this slow. Top the throttle."

Careful not to the squeeze the thrusters, Leia brushed her hand over the throttle again. A low hum rose around them as dust whipped into her eyes and Han gripped her waist in support.

"Good, good," he said, ducking his head to whisper in her ear, the throttle's hum too loud for any other kind of instruction. The hair at her temples sprung free of her braided coronet, fell into her eyes. "Now slowly ease off the brake."

But Leia didn't want to go slow.

She lifted her booted heel and they _flew._ The terrain around them blurred into dark and light colors, the only constant the beautiful clear sky above. Like a flash the outer world melted and sensation narrowed into sleek speed and the arm wrapped around her stomach.

For two glorious seconds they were like a shockwave, blustering past red mesas and scraggly desert foliage, the air whipping her into a frenzy of hums and bursts of rumbling as the swoop accelerated into milky red and endless blue.

But then the arm wrapped around her disappeared and the warm weight of her husband fell off the swoop. Shocked back into reality from the adrenaline high of pure velocity, Leia stomped her heel down on the brake and flipped the swoop around.

"Han!" she yelled as the world settled into its normal line and shape.

She twitched, ready to jump off the swoop and run toward the heap of husband where he lay in the red dust of the desert. Before she could get very far, he sat up.

"I told you," he yelled, standing and dusting off his trousers with false annoyance. "Go _slow_ to start with. But did you listen? _No._ "

At the first rotation of his hips Leia settled into back into the saddle, worry dissipating. "You said _go._ I went."

"I said _ease off the brake,_ not _leave your husband in the dust,"_ he griped. "Hell, I'm about to go get the helmets."

That made her laugh, still astride the swoop as he made his way back to her. She could tell by his walk that he wasn't actually angry, that his good-natured muttering was purely for her entertainment.

"Are you alright?" she asked once he reached the swoop.

He rolled his eyes at her, leaned his head to kiss her temple and then hauled himself back behind her on the swoop. "If you wanted to kick my ass, you could've just said so."

He settled into her again, his larger frame shadowing hers, left hand reaching around her. With a muffled grunt he pulled her bodily back into himself, fitting their hips together like puzzle pieces. A trill of anticipation ran down her spine as she felt him nestled close, felt him nudge her temple to the side with his lips. Not protective, not now, not when they were in-between assignments. More like treasuring. Appreciating.

"Okay," he whispered into her ear. "Let's do this … real … slow-like,"

She blinked, wiggled her hips against his and then said in her closest approximation of girlish shyness, "But _darling._ What if I don't want to go slow?"

He paused, then lifted the hand wrapped around her waist to her chin and turned her head to the side to kiss her. Soft, enticing, heavier than a brush but without the powerful presence of his tongue, the kiss swept through Leia like starlight on her skin. She shifted her shoulders to accommodate him, pressing her hand to his knee and twisting with slight discomfort at the waist.

He disengaged with a breath against her lips and Leia found his eyes: bright green, sly and mischievous.

"Slow is the name of the game," he said, releasing her chin and easing her back against him as they faced the controls together. "Riding a swoop is like sex. You gotta start soft, work a little, find your rhythm. Build up the tension a bit. Fast is not good."

"Oh?" she answered. "And what if you don't want slow? What then?"

He eased his arm around her again, squeezed her stomach. "Start slow. Get a handle on it. And _then_ punch it."

 _Alright, flyboy,_ she thought, stroking the throttle, easing her heel up a bit and ducking her chin. With a nice, soft hum—almost a purr—the swoop eased forward: manageable, tame.

"Good," Han murmured. "Nice and slow."

She tested the steering, got the feel for air drag and the whip of dust in her face, listening to Han's cues and the ever-present rumble of the swoop beneath her. It wasn't so different from a speeder bike, she reasoned. Just faster.

 _Faster._

The temptation to open the throttle and squeeze the thruster pads against her thighs was omnipresent. The capability of the machine beneath her body sang to her, hypnotizing in its possibility. The canyon was enormous and they were utterly alone. Her blood ran hot and she didn't know if it was because of Han's slow stroke of fingers at her waist, the freedom of the canyon or the speed itself that called.

If riding a swoop was like sex, then Leia didn't want to go slow. She wanted it hard, fast, passionate and just past the proper side of dangerous.

She'd long ago abandoned the idea of decency in her private life when alone with Han.

Minutes ticked by and Han showed her thrust capacities, the hard turn radiuses that gave her a taste of speed she so desperately wanted. Comfortable now, he tested her instincts, gave her benchmarks ( _get to the outcropping in two-point-six seconds_ ), taught her hovering heights and dips and shakes, defensive maneuvers, the sensitive nub of the throttle, the pressure pad of the thrusters between her legs.

 _That_ she had liked.

And then finally, _finally,_ Han directed her back to the idling swoop in the distance, back to where they came from, where their packs were set. As she brought the rig to its twin, slowing down from their leisurely pace, she noticed the wind picking up, the red dust blowing across the canyon floor with flurries and gusts. The magnificent sky swept over them like a cerulean brush stroke.

Beautiful, beautiful.

"There you go, sweetheart," he said after she killed the lifters and he eased off the swoop. "Kinda fun, right?"

She swiveled in the saddle, both feet hanging down one side of the swoop, facing Han with an arched brow. " _Very_ fun. It explains a lot about you, actually."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she said, kicking her feet idly and tilting her head. "Teenage _you_ with that much speed? That's trouble with a capital _T._ "

She imagined a gangly, long-limbed, slightly awkward adolescent version of her husband, desperate to prove himself as anything other than a street orphan or a pickpocket. She imagined his drive to win, the need he seemed to possess for speed and danger. The way he'd earned his cocksuredness, the sly, knowing look he gave her when he recognized the same kind of confidence in her. She imagined what teenaged her would have done with teenaged him, what her father would have said if she'd run away with a swoop racer at sixteen.

That last thought made her laugh. She had never been one to _run away_ with anyone, particularly at sixteen when her political career had begun to heat up.

So she banished the fantasy and asked the question that had been on her mind since they'd hiked up here more than an hour ago.

"Now explain to me why there are two swoops, Han _."_

She knew. But she wanted to hear him say it.

He pressed his lips together, eyed her carefully. "Why do you think there are two?"

Leia stared at the second swoop, sitting innocently less than ten meters away, then switched her focus back to Han.

"I think you want to race."

He paused, eyeing her without changing his expression. Then he took three steps toward her, knees bent, shoulders back, a look on his face that she could describe as _predatory_. They were the same height as she sat on the saddle of the swoop—convenient access and the very reason she hadn't hopped down after him—and she knew _exactly_ what he was after. His eyes gave everything away: burning a hot challenge to her without saying a word.

She parted her legs, cocked her head to the side and watched him come to her: blithe, tall and in total control of the situation.

His hands reached her first, landing on her knees and sliding up to the outside of her thighs as he stepped between them and brought his nose centims away from her own. She didn't dare blink, didn't move, didn't breathe. Oh, _yes,_ this is what she wanted.

"Fuck yes, I want to race you," he said, low and hard.

His hands squeezed her legs and pulled them to wrap around his thighs. Leia didn't move, kept her hands braced on either side of her hips, leaning back in the saddle.

"I wanna race you," he continued. "And then I want to take you back to the _Falcon_ and fuck you."

She raised an eyebrow, grateful to her years of political training to keep the nonplussed look on her face while her stomach broke into happy, nervous flutters and her skin felt like someone had run an electric current through it from head to toe.

"Really," she said, dry and unworried.

"Really," he repeated, stepping farther into her to press his hips against hers, his hands ghosting up to her waist, thumbs edging under her vest to stroke the skin of her belly. "Care to make a wager?"

She breathed a laugh, pushed off her hands to lean into him as he moved back to give her room. "General, that doesn't sound like fair terms. I only just learned how to fly this thing."

"I was thinking of terms that you _obviously—_ " and here he rolled his hips into hers, erection clearly present against the cradle of her body, "—wouldn't mind."

The feel of him hard and wanting made her eyes flutter closed. "Maybe," she breathed. "Maybe."

"And I'm not a general," he murmured. "Not anymore."

And then his lips were on hers, hungry and warm, and though she wanted to continue the _hard-to-get_ facade, she couldn't help the hand that swept up his jaw, stroked softly as he kissed her. His tongue swept past her lips and Leia had to pull back for a ragged breath before pulling him back down to her. She flexed her legs, trapping him, and wrapped her other arm around his neck. The world around her faded away. It was just Han, all Han, and the way he made her feel.

Too soon he pulled his lips away and stepped back from her, breathing hard. Leia's legs dropped to the side of the swoop beneath her and she swept a hand over her braid, checking to make sure he hadn't messed with it too much.

"Fine," she said. "Let's race."

Han nodded, put his hands behind his head and turned his back to her. _Walking it off,_ she thought with a small grin. He made a circle in the red dust, a pathway of deep breaths and focus.

"Terms?" he asked, loud.

She was amused to see how he carefully regulated his breathing, walked with a kind of stiff-kneed wobble in an elliptical path to cool his blood down. _What does he do to tame himself?_ she wondered. _Think about dead pittens and nav calculations?_

The thought made her laugh and wince at the same time, pride and empathy combining into a soft muffled chuckle.

"Position," she answered him. "And location."

He stopped his walk to give her a look, glint in his eye and quirk to his lips. "Awfully brave of you, sweetheart."

She shrugged. "I have faith."

Han pursed his lips but nodded and Leia knew he assumed she had faith in her own abilities. But that wasn't what she meant at all. She was an untrained Force-sensitive Skywalker descendant, sure, but winning a swoop race against Han Solo? Who flew starships like a madman and had made a name for himself on the swoop circuit before he'd been able to legally consume alcohol?

She didn't have a chance in hell.

Her faith was rooted in trust in her husband, that however he demanded payment, it would be discrete and pleasurable on all sides. She'd already made plenty of references to a hard, fast cumulation to this activity, and despite what everyone seemed to think, he listened to her well enough.

Particularly about sex. _Especially_ about sex.

"Deal," he said, reaching to shake her hand with laughter in his eyes. "You're gonna lose, Organa."

Of course she was. He didn't actually think this was anything but a ploy to get him as desperate for her as he could be, did he?

"Just hand me the helmet, hotshot," she said.


	2. Chapter 2

_Author's Note: When I said two chapters, I meant_ three, _ha. Clearly I can't be trusted to finish this in a timely fashion and it's just taking too long to write the last chunk. So! Here's part two of_ Ride, _since it's done and just sitting here as I work on the rest. Thank you for your patience; it's been sorely tested these past months, I know!_

 _Erin Darroch, this was supposed to be your birthday gift forever ago. You are a beautiful soul and I hope you know how beloved you are! I am so so so late, but it is given to you with all the love and affection this author has for an inspiration and a friend._

* * *

They raced back to the _Falcon_ on the edge of the red desert and through the imposing line of canyons. Two specks of speed, rocketing past outcroppings and through hairpin turns, dust billowing behind them in plumes. The sound was _incredible,_ whines and hums echoing in a cacophony of sound, canyon to canyon, the deep rumbles of soundwaves hitting rock, bouncing back and dissolving into nothing behind them.

Leia skidded through a sharp ninety-degree turn, her swoop inverting until her head was parallel to the canyon floor. Her heartbeat stuttered, her adrenaline sang, and she eased the frantic pressure on the thrusters to pull out of the turn. Reverting to a normal orientation, she dialed back the throttle and sat forward, creating a more aerodynamic position, and tried to make up the time she'd lost to Han with the accidental hiccup.

And Han …. Han was _glorious._

Lethal and fast, he easily passed her in the first two minutes; she'd lost sight of him almost immediately in the network of canyons. She could hear him ahead of her, his swoop's roars the only indication she had to his whereabouts.

But what she _had_ seen was revelatory. Lithe, strong figure dashing on the swoop, shoulders broad and large hands gripping the steering controls with surefire joy. She couldn't see his face—he wore his beat-up helmet like a crown, like he ruled the desert he blew past in a fit of red dust and a wild _whoop_ —but she had spent many years studying Han Solo's body. And this, _oh,_ this was a staggeringly attractive man in full control of a dangerous ride.

Leia loved him for his non-physical parts, of course. He was brave, honorable, so brilliant that it sometimes flummoxed her. She treasured his friendship, his perspective. He had her absolute trust, had proven himself worth her faith a thousand times over.

But Han Solo, the physical creature of wild origins, indelicate sensibilities and the kind of swagger that made her catch her breath? The madman tearing through the red canyons ahead of her at breakneck speed?

Right now he was all she wanted. The desire, the thrumming heat between her legs, was strung tight, waiting for him. And she was not very good at waiting.

She licked her lips and gripped her focus with durasteel fists.

One more hairpin turn— _no, two_ —and the canyon suddenly disappeared as she burst through the mouth. She zoomed into the badlands, a dry, empty swath of dirt between the closest city and the canyons. The land in front of her was flat—perfect for the final stretch of their race—and the beautiful blue of the sky swept from one horizon to another, right to left. For a startled moment the utter expansiveness overwhelmed her. Not like the nothingness of interstellar space: more like a veritable plethora of possibility.

But the feeling passed and in its place was a worried pang in her stomach.

She didn't see Han, didn't see his swoop, didn't see dust-tracks to indicate he'd flown through the badlands yet. But the canyons only had one mouth; she should have seen him if she'd bypassed him or if his swoop had malfunctioned. Or if he'd been injured.

 _Where is he?_

And then the air ruptured, the groan of a swoop engine going from idle to full-speed in a millisecond.

With a screech of metal and a telltale _boom,_ her husband flew out of his hiding spot near the mouth of the canyon and waved a two finger salute as he passed her, legs gripping the thruster pads and body leaning into his hand-grips like he was going to power the swoop all by himself.

 _Oh, you cheating son of a bitch—_

Leia stabbed the throttle, lifted her heel and squeezed her inner thighs against the thrusters. The swoop beneath her hurtled forward and Leia eyed her husband's back meters in front of her with ferocious intent. She grit her teeth against the urge to throw something at the swoop in front of her.

They dashed to the _Falcon,_ Han in front and to the right of Leia. The combined roar of the two swoops was nearly deafening, and Leia considered what an actual swoop race would sound like. Suddenly the wide expanse of the badlands narrowed into a pinprick focus: the _Falcon_ , closed up, no boarding ramp, security controls engaged.

She ducked her chin and leaned forward.

Three hundred meters. Leia's eyes swam, her intense focus on the _Falcon_ 's cockpit blurring into a last-ditch effort to best her husband for the thrill of it, never mind that he had engineered this competitive last leg by hanging back until she came out of the canyons. That didn't matter. It was _on._

She didn't see the sky any longer. The dust didn't exist. All she saw was the _Falcon;_ all she heard were the swoops.

Two hundred meters. She was edging toward him. The sound was chaos, distracting, dangerous, blasting from the swoop in waves, big mechanical _whumps_ that hit her skin like electrical shocks.

One hundred meters. They were side-by-side, hunched over their swoops, riding at top speed as the _Falcon_ got closer and closer and closer, her mottled grey exterior sharpening into carbon scoring and patchwork hull repairs.

Fifty meters. Leia's heart skittered into a double-time tempo.

Twenty meters.

Ten.

 _Five._

In the shadow of the _Falcon,_ Leia stomped her heel down on the brake and twisted her hand-grips into a lurching, skidding stop. The electricity pounding against her skin sang as the swoop fell to the ground, struts groaning at the suddenness of the descent. Dust flew around her, obscuring her vision while she swung her leg over the bike and lifted the helmet from her head.

"Han!" she yelled before the dust had settled. "Where are you?"

A hand snaked around the small of her back, gripped her waist and spun her into a heaving chest and lips that tasted like fire. She dropped the helmet, forgotten, and leaned into the kiss, hard and insistent. Lips that knew hers; lips that knew how to pull her in and back away and then pull her in again, like an ocean tide or the ebbing pangs of an addiction. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she tugged him into herself, bending his body forward by the insistence of her forearm against the back of his neck.

He broke the kiss with a quick tilt of his chin, skimmed his hands down her sides to her hips. With a bend of his knees, he wrapped his hands around the backs of her thighs and lifted her against him to eliminate their damned height difference. Leia knew the maneuver well—she'd once claimed that he liked to manhandle her and she stood by that statement—and wrapped her legs around his hips, settled against him with practiced ease.

Leia's eyes closed as their lips met again at a better angle, nose brushing nose, the curl of his smile tempting against her tongue. Smooth, indecent, blinding and explosive they kissed, the world blurring around them as Han's feet stuttered in a mindless circle, a mimicry of his earlier circuit as he'd tried to calm himself before the race.

There was no calm now. None.

Leia's blood whipped through her veins and she leaned back to scrape her front teeth against the fullness of his bottom lip. She _craved_ his attention, felt starved for his hands and the sinful temptations of his lips as if they'd been apart of days, weeks, _months_. But he'd awoken her this morning with a sweet, soft kiss and the kind of adoration that made her lose her breath. And the rest of the morning had been nothing but closeness and tame companionship. Such … not _innocence,_ exactly, but romantic purity. The kind of simple, loving peace that she desperately needed and had never in a million years imagined she would find with a wild Corellian smuggler on the fringes of the law.

But that had been this morning. The tone had changed.

When had it become imperative that Leia watch her husband dissolve into mindless pleasure? When had that tide changed, when had this gone from a sweet exploration of his past to a desperate need for release?

Her hand spasmed in his hair, pulling, and he broke the kiss to grunt against her lips.

"Play nice, Princess," he said, then pecked her lips as if to soften his words.

She leaned away from him, sliding her arms around his neck to keep her balance. The juncture of her thighs pressed against the hard wall of his abdominal muscles and while not nearly as electric or stimulating as the pulse of the swoop's thrusters, Leia's internal muscles clenched involuntarily, anticipating hardness and speed in a way that made her catch her breath.

"Who won?" she asked him, trying to refocus her body.

He squeezed her hips. "Me," he said and smiled.

Oh, and in that smile was dark promise and unfailing love and challenge. Leia had no resistance against the smug, boyish charm that should have been a contradiction in terms but was the natural, pure essence of her husband.

 _Cheater,_ she thought but kissed him anyway, the thrum of energy passing from her to him and back to her: rising and lovely.

"Gave you a handicap and everything," he muttered. "You're good, Organa, but you can't take me."

Han's lips pressed against hers but she jerked her head back, forcing separation with a soft _pop_ of dissolved suction.

"I can't?" she asked, raising an eyebrow.

She almost laughed at his expression: sad and wanting, eyebrows knitted as if she'd removed any sense from his world. His eyes dropped and she could almost hear him struggle to remember what he'd said.

His expression cleared, the fog lifted and the heat returned to his eyes, narrow and intent. Leia's stomach flipped and her internal muscles clenched again.

"Not today you can't. I won." His eyes dropped to her lips; she ran her tongue over them in complete challenge. " _I_ get to take."

Quick as lightning, he wrapped one arm around her lower back to steady her and then brushed a light tap against her skin just below her hip. She wriggled in response, thrilled at how the smallest power gesture in his hands could feel so brazenly inappropriate and so deliciously stimulating at the same time.

He grinned at her fake pout, at her assumed role of reluctant loser in their bet, while his hand made contact again in a soft caress. Mindless sweeps of fingers, somehow loving as he projected confident control through a head tilt and his damned smirk.

"Hmm," she murmured. "Aren't we feeling brave today?"

His expression didn't change, playful smirk and mischievous eyes so ingratiatingly clear on a scarred face and imposing visage. Leia was a master at human social cues, at reading faces and seeking truth from small details in a being's words, actions and attitude. The better she knew a person, the better she could read them.

And yet her own husband could confound that training with a wink and a brush of a hand.

How did he _do_ that? Somehow look boyish and excitable while very obviously upping the ante on a conversation that was going to become filthy in a matter of moments? Make her stutter, make her hesitate? Not because what he said was outrageous or dirty—not yet, anyway—but because his mind worked like an elaborate trap, pulling and pulling and pulling her in until she couldn't resist anymore?

Her heart thrummed, lightning under her breastbone. Saying that she loved him didn't quite do the feeling justice.

"Alright then, hotshot," she said. "How do I pay up?"

 _Sinful._ That was the word Leia would use to describe the perfect depravity in the look her husband gave her in that moment. The utter desire, the hard pitch of her stomach, the glint in his eyes as he lunged forward like a predator, prey in grasp, toward the nearest landing strut of the _Falcon._

Four tense steps and her back was pressed against narrow durasteel alloy, the strut barely wider than the span of her shoulders. Han's hand was warm on her lower back as her shoulder blades made contact. She slid upwards with the deep press of his hips against hers. A thrust but not a thrust. A show of power. The trap sprung, the power play flipped.

 _God,_ she loved him.

He was so close that she could barely breathe, her chest pressing into his with every inhale. His nose nudged the side of hers, their lips separated by a hair. Her eyes moved between his, trying to capture the green-hazel fire in their depths but only managing a brief, bright flash before he kissed her.

Like igniting a well-fueled torch, Leia's body broke into tension, a fierce twist-and-pull between gravitational forces: what her body wanted and what her mind implored of her. He was irresistible, a force of nature, an unimpeded hurricane. And she wanted it all, everything, every breath, every moan, every command and sweet cajole he could articulate.

As if she hadn't already felt him inside of her today. As if they didn't regularly make games of their intimate life, dares and bets and the sweet demands of a trusting and desperately appreciated marriage. As if they weren't bound for life by a ceremony conducted by a two hundred year old being who saw matrimony as a promise to be kept far beyond the human lifespan. As if this was new or dangerous or inappropriate.

Durasteel pressed into her shoulder blades, her legs wrapped around his narrow hips. She could feel how she affected him, made him hard and hungry for her … he was beautiful to her. She loved him, adored him, found his brain endlessly fascinating and his body so damn enticing that it was hard to remember to resist him at times like this. She wanted him as much as he wanted her, with a gnawing need that felt like it'd spread to her bones, to the very fabric of who she was.

But.

"You can't be serious," she murmured into the soft demand of his lips. "Not _here._ "

He pulled back. His lips shone with the lasting efforts of her tongue and she found secret satisfaction from the sight.

"I won," he said. "My choice. Position and location."

Leia rolled her eyes. Keeping her left hand wrapped around his neck for support, she brought her other to the open front of his collar, slipping her fingers beneath the fabric of his shirt to splay a palm against the wonderfully heated skin below his collarbone.

"Dust," she said. "Wind. _People._ No _._ "

"My. Choice," he growled, and the wind whipped his hair into a frenzy, strands falling on his forehead.

The juxtaposition was so endearing—-his rough-and-tumble words against the pleading tone beneath them—-that Leia had to stifle a laugh.

"Darling," she began, lowering her voice with deliberate seductive intent, hoping to mask reason with sexuality, "you can take me against a wall if that's what you want."

His head jerked back. She followed, pressed her lips against his cheek. She tasted the dust of the canyon and wondered why the pulse between her thighs suddenly felt loud enough to hear.

"You can bend me over the holochess table," she murmured.

She kissed his earlobe. His hand spasmed at her back.

"You can tell me to get on my knees and I'd gladly do it."

She took his earlobe between her teeth and tugged, pressing the heel of her hand against his chest to feel the hiccup in his heartbeat. He sucked in a breath and she felt his eyelashes flutter closed.

"But we will not be doing any of those things out here," she concluded, lips at his ear.

He groaned and Leia couldn't stop her laughter now. He sounded _wounded_ , he sounded like she'd just maimed him.

"For a guy that just won a race, I sure ain't getting my due," he said in response, and Leia heard the rumblings of actual discontent from him.

She raised an eyebrow. "Really?" she said.

Without waiting for his response, she used her position against the strut—gods, she hoped it would hold her weight—to wriggle her hips away from his stomach, and clasp his hips with her knees in a death grip, pushing him back a step.

 _Don't move,_ her eyes warned him.

Leia reached one hand above her head and found a hand-grip to stabilize herself, tightening her lower abdominal muscles for the strength to maintain her position, and swept one dusty, wind-bitten hand down her body. From throat to the valley between her breasts, to navel and past the juncture of her thighs. Leia's hand traveled, fingers walking down the plane of her body.

Han's eyes were intent on their journey.

She reached past where she ached for him, past where the swoop thrusters had primed her for him, and swept a lone finger against the hardness visible beneath his belt buckle.

Han sucked in a breath, chin to his chest, watching her fingers' every move with rapt fascination. "Interesting proposal," he murmured, catching her eye and then ducking his chin to his chest again to watch.

She flipped her hand over, palm to the _Falcon's_ underbelly and brushed her index and middle fingers upward in a come-hither gesture. With fabric between her fingers and his skin, she couldn't be absolutely sure if she imagined his shiver. He was definitely hard, tucked in uncomfortably tight, and she knew her teasing had to be driving him crazy.

"Inside," she said, her voice raspy. "And I will make sure you are properly rewarded, Captain."

Han brushed his hands beneath her legs, trying to support her hips. She felt him squeeze her, palm her with unabashed appreciation.

"Dunno," he murmured. "You look pretty good all stretched out like that. I like the view."

"I like the _feel,"_ she said, raising an eyebrow. "But I'd also like to come and I don't see that happening like this."

Brave words that she would never have imagined she'd say out loud before she'd first slept with Han. Since then, though, she'd said, done and seen things that had made embarrassment an ancient, dead emotion in the privacy of their bedroom. She was not ashamed of her desires. Any fears of what her partner would think of such bold demands on their time had long ago been silenced with Han's easy and frank delight.

Leia continued her slow, light touch, fingers whispering up and down the front of Han's trousers. _Can he even feel it?_ she wondered, but took one look at his face and knew that he absolutely could. His eyes were focused on the soft path of her fingers and he squeezed her hips again in encouragement.

"You don't?" he asked her. "I probably could, if you keep that up."

 _Liar,_ she thought, throwing up a knowing look. The way he was wound up? The involuntary twitch of his fingers on her skin? The man was in no mood for light teasing and fleeting touches. It was just a mater of time before he snapped.

"If you could, you wouldn't be my husband," she murmured, throwing him a knowing smile. "Come on, flyboy. Take me inside."


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3

Han lowered himself to his knees, careful and slow. The maneuver was tricky; suspended above the ground as she was, Leia couldn't leave the strut without his help. In any other circumstance, he would've quipped a snide remark: _when you got yourself in that position, didn't you have a plan for getting out?_ Or maybe: _oh, you_ need _me to move, do you?_

But she'd riled him up enough to keep him quiet, it seemed. For that, Leia was grateful.

She unwrapped her legs from around his hips and walked her lower body back to the strut. She held out a hand to him as he stood and he tugged her in close, breathed in her hair as she wrapped her arms around him.

"I'm onto you, wife _,_ " he growled to the crown of her head. "I'm supposed to be getting my way here and you're usin' acrobatics to get yours."

She stepped away from him and tugged on his belt, the nerf-hide rough against her fingers: as clear a sign as any that she wasn't interested in anything _but_ his way. Her eyes found his in the swirling dust, promise and pinpoint focus clear in the hazy green. She pursed her lips, guided him to the ramp controls, leading by the buckle of his belt and holster. Backwards, up and up and up, out of the blazing sun and red canyon dust and further beneath the ship.

Slapping a hand against the control panel just above her head, Han reached around her to pat the dust from her shoulders and arms. He did little but leave Han-sized handprints in the collection of red on her skin and vest. She smiled ruefully and shook her head, hearing the first notes of the boarding ramp's descent cycle.

"We're a mess," she said.

"Always," he said.

She nodded but loved his answer. Han's unique talent for speaking to two situations with one word never failed to enchant her. They were always a mess; he was right. Never quite on the same page as everyone else, either too stubborn or too clueless to keep to the status quo. Their whole marriage, their whole relationship, hell, even their friendship had been a mess. Embracing the chaos had been one of her finest choices.

She slid her hands over his lower back—daringly low, just shy of blatantly inappropriate—and smiled up at him. "Bad habit."

"Nah," he said, with a flash of white teeth. "Just have to, uh, clean up first."

He winked at her as the boarding ramp clunked to a heavy stop and Leia's heart swelled in open, blazing adoration. They hurried up the ramp, their footsteps echoing into the _Falcon'_ s ring corridor. Leia turned and pressed the interior controls for the ramp and then turned to face Han, tilting her head in coquettish question.

"Fresher?" she asked.

"Fresher," he answered.

He grabbed her hand and led her around the bend in the corridor, through the galley and past the holochess table. Leia did not miss the contemplative look Han sent the table as they passed and stifled her urge to laugh.

The captain's cabin was dark when they entered. A safe haven, their home while on missions: the _Falcon_ 's sole bunkroom felt like a refuge from the chaos of their lives. Here their undercover identities didn't exist, the darkness and the evil in the galaxy that they fought was nothing. The cabin was for _them,_ was for intimacy in all senses of the word. She talked about Alderaan in this space; he talked about Dewlanna. Beyond sexual intimacy, the cabin was where she felt supremely herself and the relief she felt upon entering it with Han was almost overwhelming.

Han didn't bother to turn on the lighting panels. They passed the bunk, the holding crates and the holo-panel by memory alone, coming to a stop inside the cramped, unlit fresher.

"Light?" she asked as Han turned and slipped his fingers beneath her vest.

He didn't look up, only shrugged as he stepped closer to her.

"Wouldn't you like to see what you're doing?"

He shrugged again, his eyes locked on the bottom hem of her vest like it held all the secrets of the universe. She clasped his wrists before he could unlatch the fastener of the vest and tried to give him her best patient look.

Perhaps she'd gone a bit farther in her teasing than she'd meant to go. Singular focus was definitely a Solo trait when he felt frustrated or when the thread of sexual tension pulled taut. She'd known this for more than a decade: while patient, Han had limits. And when pushed past those limits his focus became laser-thin, nanometrical. It was the reason he was an inspired pilot, the reason he'd survived his youth.

It was not the best mindset for this moment, though. She smiled and lifted her right hand to press against his mouth, forestalling his grumbling.

"My last suggestion," she said. "I like watching you."

Han's eyes glinted and he kissed her fingers, reaching behind her to brush his hand against the fresher's light controls. The space illuminated with blinding light: even modified for certain comforts, there was no need to install a low, romantic light setting on a smuggler's freighter fresher. Leia blinked and Han came back into focus, waving watery lines sharpening into tall, broad, grinning Corellian with wild challenge in his eyes.

He reached for her vest and slipped his fingers beneath the leather: feather-light, soft touches at her stomach. The hard ridges of his fingers sliced against her skin like loving wire and Leia felt the heat suffuse her again. Her body remembered what he'd done to her already today: his cocky grin, the rumbles against her ear, his desperate lips. His eyes weren't on hers—they were on his hand—but his confident smirk was shameless, fully proud. Leia remembered his heat against her back as he'd taught his little flying lesson. The thrusters between her legs. The lightheaded, dusky feeling of being captivated by someone who had captivated her many times before and yet could always surprise her.

His fingers moved upward and he stepped closer, palm sliding under her vest to press against her navel. She sucked in a breath, the only sound in the small space between them. Where his palm touched, her muscles contracted: torch-like, lighting everything on fire as he went. Up, to the skin below her breasts, stopping there like a leaden weight.

And Leia remembered _why_ she couldn't get enough of him, why she always fell apart against him. The pure stubbornness of his mettle, the unyielding courage of his conviction. So sure that he knew her own intractability, could contain it or overpower it.

That was why he could surprise her, why she _let_ him surprise her. Because the sexiest thing about Han Solo wasn't his eyes or his smile or his broad shoulders and trim waist, though she appreciated all of that like the work of art he was. No, the sexiest thing about Han Solo was that he listened to her needs and desires, did not judge, and offered his own in return.

His eyes paused, his whole form still: nothing moved except her shallow breaths against his hand. The whole galaxy: waiting.

He smiled. Full lips rolled up one side of his face like a river breaking through rock. Inevitable. Satisfied. So utterly confident in himself. He blinked and his eyes challenged, goaded: like he'd already seen how this played out and was keeping her in suspense. And with an expression like that _,_ she sure as hell wasn't going to stop him from doing damn near anything he wanted to do.

"Leia," he murmured, and dropped his eyes to look at his hand hidden beneath her vest. "Who won the race?"

She had to do something with her hands; it was a sudden imperative. In a moment of beautiful panic, she grabbed the elbow of the hand that was beneath her vest. The other she pressed against the side of his abdomen, her thumb tracing the well-worn fabric of his shirt.

"You did," she said.

He hummed and nodded. Leia felt his thumb brush against the underside of her right breast twice, forward and back, and then retract to its former position at her abdomen. Leia exhaled, her breath leaving her in a rush.

"And what did I win?" he asked.

His _voice._ Basement deep: challenging warmth that fell into her body and nestled just below her stomach. Pressed up against her, towering above her, he looked powerful and … _dangerous_ wasn't the right word, not at all. But the air was thick with want, their breathing loud, and Leia returned to the image of a predator and his prey. Being agreeably cornered. Willingly trapped.

"Me," she whispered.

His smirk turned corkscrew, slipping up one side of his face while his hand pressed upward and his thumb ran under her breast like he was touching an unexpected reward. Leia sucked in a breath and bowed her body back, pressed her hips to his.

" _You,_ " he said with such naked, dark awe that Leia had to close her eyes against the urge to hug him to her, so overwhelmed with gratitude for the man in front of her.

And then the switch flipped.

Han's hands retreated, sudden, with a quick exhale, and then they were on her vest, gripping the hems of the fabric and ripping it open with a rend of torn thread. The violence of it was appallingly hypnotic. Safe in the hands of the man who loved her, the quick destruction was less dangerous to her health and more surprising thrill.

"You're replacing that," Leia said.

He cocked an eyebrow at her, teasing. "You have a million vests just like that one."

"That one was my favorite."

She pushed the ruined vest down her arms and onto the cold deck plating beneath her boots.

Han knelt, gave her his shoulders to use for balance. "Looks exactly like all the other ones you have," he said.

Leia put her hands on her hips: stared down at him as he unbuckled her military-style boots. The old ones that she'd had since Endor, the ones with the stubborn latch he couldn't ever seem to undo.

"It's stun-proof," she said to the top of his head. "It doesn't get too hot in the sun. It doesn't scratch up my arms. It _fits_."

"Does it know how to take off this fucking boot?"

Leia laughed and knelt to take over the job. By the time she'd unlatched the boots and kicked them off, Han had stood and removed his shirt and vest, tossing the clothing onto the deck next to her. She shifted to her knees and reached with nimble fingers to the clasp of his belt.

"Han Solo bested by a boot latch," she marvelled. "If you weren't capable of doing nav calculations in your head I might worry about your faculties."

She caught his eye as she popped the fastener on his belt. Green shone so playfully—so cocky and sure of himself—that she could only swallow and stare. _What a smile,_ Leia thought, heart tripping at her husband's sly intelligence and confidence. _What a ruthless, beautiful smile._

"No need to worry about my faculties, Princess," he murmured.

He offered his hand and then tugged her bodily to him. With a quick snap, he unlatched her trousers and pushed them down to the floor. She reached to return the favor but he was too fast, too excited, to let her help. Pure boyish glee in the movement, a particularly male and distinctly Corellian joy in the speed of it.

Goddess, she loved him.

And then they were skin to skin, pressed against one another with fresh excitement after a tremendous buildup. Leia looked up at Han, at his devilish eyes and heartbreaking lips and the telltale lift to his eyebrow and waited for the inevitable end to his statement. _No need to worry about my_ faculties, _Princess—_

A heavy beat, like a drum. Sure and strong. Conniving and aggressive. Heat and joy and comfort and—

"I'm all here," he murmured.

He tugged her back with him into the fresher, where water rained down from the ancient spout above them. Slick, warm hands slid across her hips, hypnotic: pressed against her skin like the consummate expert he was when it came to matters of sex in the fresher.

She leaned into him, into the pressure of his palms and the bite of his fingertips, and watched the water turn his hair dark brown, almost black. She lifted her hands, slid dust-mud residue from the gleaming bronze of his skin, starkissed and delicious. Over shoulders, biceps, through the hair on his chest and over the beautiful ridges of his throat to the back of his neck.

"You certainly are," she said, eyes following her hands as they navigated the star-chart of her husband's body.

Han watched her hands too, watched as they slipped beneath the planes of his stomach, followed the vee of muscle and bone, to his very hard erection. She ran teasing fingers over him, repeating her two-finger come-hither motion but without the nuisance of fabric. His breathing stuttered, resumed with a quiet cough. Slick with the water from the shower, warm from the blood that coursed through him, skin soft over hardness. Such a dichotomy, such a puzzle, how she could affect him so much that he was relegated to wordlessness.

She chanced a look at his face, caught the lax pout of his mouth, the closed eyelids as his throat conjured a grunt so soft, so pleading, that Leia felt a moment of pity. She slipped her fingers to his base, slid her palm beneath the head and squeezed him.

Leia knew her husband's body like Han knew the _Falcon._ She knew what foreplay took from him, the heavy toll of being the generous lover he was. She expected his low groan, the jolt that ran through his body at her grip, the way he towered over her and leaned into the space above her head. A part of his intense stubbornness, manifesting in his need for competitiveness. It was fun to torture him with it, to wield her power against him by forcing his own pleasure. A harmless way of asserting her _own_ stubbornness, her _own_ competitiveness.

Thus she acted the ready loser in his game, in his bet, and fought to push him over the edge first. Not to humiliate him: there was no such embarrassment between them. Perhaps in a different universe their stubbornness might work against each other. But not here. Not in the safe space of their marriage, where wants and needs were readily met and enjoyed, where there was no scorecard for pleasure.

And, too, Han had a beautiful way of reciprocating whenever she felled him. Merciless. Absolutely revelatory.

She slid her finger tips up again, walked them to the head, soft pinpricks against vulnerable skin, then made a fist at the tip, squeezed. Han grunted and thrusted into the tightness of her hand. Involuntarily, she guessed, because he exhaled in a rush and leaned back.

"Tryin' to kill me," he muttered.

"Mm-hmm."

She added her second hand, tried to ignite every bit of his body as she enfolded him completely. Leia didn't put stock in the size of a man's …. ah, Alderaanians had called it _laartei_ and that was the word she used in the privacy of her head, though Han said _cock._ She didn't understand the utter ridiculousness of judging by size or girth or whatever else it was males felt warranted heraldry or ridicule. She assumed the fascination with size was largely a _human_ male construct. Such unnuanced assumptions seemed par for the course.

But Han was well-endowed, from what she'd gathered from her little experience and a particularly embarrassing conversation during the trip to Bespin. Leia didn't care: simply appreciated how he used such an appendage, with vigor and a teasing competence that matched her own need for power and dominance on occasion. By contrast her hands were small, so when she really wanted to drive him insane, she had to use everything she had.

Han groaned again, pressed his left forearm against the fresher wall above her head, leaned into it like it was keeping him upright. His slouched position allowed the spray to hit the crown of her head, her hair taking the brunt of the water, dark strands clinging to her face and neck.

Leia didn't care. Han shook, his thighs braced and his knees bent. His telltale signs of deepening enjoyment, when he stopped thinking and fell into the weight of his intense desire for her. She suspected she'd already thwarted whatever plans he'd had when she brought her hands to him. But that was her specialty: rendering her husband incoherent. She knew what he looked like before he came: the marvelled, surprised tension that bit into his forehead and the sides of his mouth, his shaking right hand. She'd catalogued the sequence of facial expressions like a words in a favorite poem. Treasured the knowledge. Memorized the art she created.

Leia dropped to her knees and slid her right hand under his shaft. Poor man deserved …. Well. Han always deserved the best of what she offered, and she'd known long before she'd first slept with him that her mouth was a favorite. Whether it was a typical male fantasy or something unique to the image of someone capable of enormous change with the slightest words from her lips, Leia didn't know. It was probably a combination of both. Pleasure so rarely stemmed from only one source.

She loved the way he fell to pieces when she did this, the pleasure he took from it.

She kissed his tip, ran her left hand over his leg and looked at his face, just to make sure she wasn't pushing him past his limit. He looked down, eyes less green now and more… gold? A lighter brown? She didn't know. He brought a hand to her cheek.

"Yeah," he muttered.

She nodded, wrapped her right hand around his base, and took the tip of him into her mouth.

The sound that came from his lips was so helpless that Leia wanted to smile. Oh, Han. Talked the big talk— _wanna fuck you in every location and every position on the_ Falcon, he'd said only about thirty minutes ago—but was rendered completely powerless by her mouth. She swept her tongue under him, brushed her free hand up the inside of his thigh. He shuddered, panted, wrapped his hand around the back of her head and tried to set a rhythm for her. She took his hint, hollowed her cheeks and pulled her lips to his tip. His head dropped back, chin to the ceiling, as she indulged him, alternated between a driving, fast rhythm and a more teasing one.

Her free hand ran over his body in freeform strides. Whereas Leia liked to concentrate on the sensations he created with his mouth when he did this to her, Han preferred a more fulsome experience, wanted to feel lost in the moment. Years together had honed her technique and she no longer had to be guided. Fingertips brushed through the hair on his thighs, a palm over the maddeningly attractive seat of his pants when he was wearing any. A pause in the action to brush her lips over his length, soft and loving. Brute rhythms were one thing, more _her_ thing. But Han wanted to be constantly pulled to his limit and then fall back only to reach the limit again.

 _The climb's part of the fun,_ he'd told her once.

So she sucked harder. Walked her knees closer to him, found a furious, fast rhythm that went just past his usual preference. Still loving, still careful, but Leia did indeed know the starchart of her husband's body and she was damn well going to use that knowledge to her advantage.

"Hey, now," Han's hoarse voice swept over her, and his palm pressed into her hair. "What're you— _oh._ "

She concentrated on her goal, prided herself on the shaking in his legs next to her. Added a deft brush further below him, aiming for complete vanquishment. _You won the race, darling,_ she would say to him if she could. _And now you pay the price for cheating._

Power. A trading commodity. Offered and freely given. What made Han so completely her match in the sanctuary of their intimate relationship, the ability to give and take in tandem with emotional support overlaying the entire experience. She loved him. And because she loved him, he wouldn't expect her to take it easy on him.

Leia released him for a moment to run a hand over her hair. Wet strands stuck to her cheek and she tossed her head to clear them. Then she leaned close and opened her mouth, ready to resume, but was startled by Han's voice.

" _Hang on,"_ he mumbled. "Wait a second."

She jerked back, lifted her chin and looked up to his face. His eyes were trained on hers, wide and accusatory. She tilted her head as Han backed away, a hand in front of himself like he was warding her away. In any other circumstance, Leia would have found it amusing.

"What's wrong?" she asked, as innocently as she could. She knew precisely why he'd stopped.

"You're doing it again."

Leia pursed her lips. "Doing what?"

"Taking charge," he said.

Leia sat back on her heels, opened her hands to the side. "And you're enjoying it," she pointed out. "Isn't that point?"

"No. _Not_ the point," he said and, forgetting himself, shook a finger at her. "I won the race. I _won._ "

"Of course you did," she answered, wiping her wet hair from her cheek.

"I'm in charge," he said. "Me."

"You said _yeah!"_

"You try telling a beautiful woman— _your wife_ —to stop sucking your cock and tell me how it goes," he said.

Leia had to laugh then. "I will admit I haven't had the pleasure."

Leia eyed him, his heavy exhales, the strong, proud line of his erection, the way his eyes bounced between hers, playful and teasing. _Giving himself time to regroup,_ she thought. _He's going to fight back._

She flattened her hands on her thighs. _Point to you, Han._ But she had other ways of wrestling control from him. Her mouth was only the most obvious of her tools.

She stood, moving to the side to avoid the spray of the water. "Fine," she answered. "You want to be in charge?"

"I _am_ in charge."

Oh, there was so much in that tone of his that screamed _I am in no way in charge of this!_ But she was practiced at keeping those thoughts to herself. And, honestly, she wasn't sure she cared at this point who took who. The sight of her handsome life-mate in thrall with her actions—a brilliant, wordly, good-to-a-fault man who lived his life in fierce contest with who the galaxy thought he should be—had made her desire for him thrum, low and warm, between her legs.

Leia lifted her chin: smirked. "Then _take charge."_

He grinned: bright, white and happy.

"Or _I_ will _,"_ she finished.

His grin faltered but she could still see the lines of amusement around his mouth, the snide confidence in his eyes. He jerked back, slapped a hand against the water controls to shut off the spout, and then turned to her with a playful snarl.

He walked her backwards, using his imposing body—the hard ridge of his erection, his chin at least a kilometer above hers, the way he dwarfed her so completely that she should have been afraid—to pin her against the warmed plastex of the fresher cubicle. Leia could feel the heat from his skin. She looked down, noted the powerful musculature of her husband's thighs, the sleek cradle of his hips into hair and tight skin. Then further up, to the broad expanse of his chest, narrow to full, skin tanned and kissable. His shoulders, round and tense, muscle rippling into bicep, tricep, elbow, wrist. The palms he pressed into the fresher wall above her head. Imposing. Powerful. Inescapable but so damn loving that she felt no fear. Only want: a rolling, deep flutter below her belly button, just beneath the skin at the center of her hips. Like the water at the bottom of a well, but the water was boiling, roiling, violent and active just above where he would press into her.

"Location," she murmured.

He tilted his head down toward hers, caught her eye. He jerked his head to indicate the captain's cabin. His wordlessness sparked a deep want in her chest, pure animalistic desire. She opened her lips, felt her breath come short.

She licked her lips. "Position."

He looked at her for the space of three heartbeats. Just looked. No sound. No clue how he would answer her. Then with a movement so quick it startled her, he bent his knees, swept his hands beneath her thighs and hauled her up against him. She wrapped her legs around his waist, her arms around his neck: felt him hard beneath her as he knocked the dry-air sequence with his shoulder to evaporate the water from their bodies.

Han ducked his head, brought his lips to the shell of her ear. "Gonna do a few," he whispered.

Oh, but the dark promise in those words was enough. She sucked in a breath—lips opening and eyes closing—as he swept his tongue under the sensitive skin of her ear. She tightened her arms around his neck, holding on for dear life as the dry cycle finished and he stepped out of the enviro-shield, out of the fresher and into the dark cabin.

He walked to the large bunk, knelt and then released her thighs so he could fall on top of her but still cushion her landing. And with one quick movement he settled against her, pressed their hips together and thrusted, hard, into her body. Unexpected and fierce, and Leia was thankful for the long buildup, the thrusters, the spare minutes in the fresher, because she was ready for him.

He dropped her to the bunk and enter her within the same handful of seconds, so fast that she hadn't yet grown accustomed to her horizontal orientation. The effect was revelatory, like … like _falling._ Her stomach exploded into nervous flutters that only drew her deeper into her own sense of adventure. The not-fear of submitting to this large man. The sense of being safely small in his hands. She didn't care if she plunged into the sharp feeling of submission. Just for a moment, just for him.

She opened her eyes, looked below her. Han's hips were flush against hers, the pale ivory of her skin pressed into the bronze of his. His knees were planted wide, forcing hers wider, too. His upper body didn't touch hers, and something about that felt glorious. No safe, warm shelter of his chest, no exposed throat for her to nibble. His hands were braced on either side of her head and his eyes, his eyes were closed, his mouth open above her. Taking his moment to adjust, looking just as affected as she felt.

She itched for him to move, though. The spell of their fall had waned and now she wanted the fierce rush of adrenaline that accompanied the push-pull of his thrusts. The tension pulled tight. The line grew taut inside her while she watched him lose control, lose the facade he tried so hard to present to her in these games of theirs.

Her knees were too far apart for her to press her feet into the bunk; she couldn't do much to get him to move. So she lifted her arms, reached her hands to grip his wrists and squeezed. The position left her underarms exposed, made her feel open. Her shoulder-blades squeezed together, her lower back arched.

But it did the trick. Han opened his eyes and looked down at her. She had a feeling he was steeling himself, trying to last. A war of attrition, it seemed. Wearing the other down with any and all means at their disposal in an attempt to see the other break.

"Better'n the thrusters?" he asked.

Leia cocked an eyebrow. Was he kidding? The thrusters had stimulated, had made warmth bloom through her veins, yes. But Han was inside her now and nothing compared to that, the fullness, the strange completion of a man so well suited to her that his impudence didn't at all offend her. And yet she heard herself say—

"At least the thrusters moved."

"Oh, yeah?" he said, innocent expression over a face that screamed _not-innocent._

A powerful thrust. Deep. Hard. Enough to feel in her spine, the resounding, echoing murmurs of movement traveling from their point of joining to the tips of her fingers, toes, the follicles of her hair. Her eyes fell shut.

Again and Leia caught her breath, shards of her waning desire to compete with him lost in the feeling. More than control. Utterly ruthless, the need for him to move, to sustain a harsher rhythm, the feeling of him inside her and wrapped around her together as a whole. Again and Leia tried, oh she tried, to keep from crying out but she'd crossed the line between foreplay and a horizon of physical satisfaction that urged her ever forward. The sharp note of _Han_ a puncture to the chest because it sounded so overwhelmed, so helpless, but she couldn't find it in herself to care.

Again he pushed. Her legs started to shake; she could see the tremors in her knees pressed wide to accommodate his obvious desire to see her exposed.

Again. Again, and Leia rushed headlong into orgasm, surprised by the speed of it. She bit her lip with the last vestiges of her control and fell, thrown into wild oblivion with the depth of Han's thrusts, the sound of his harsh breathing above her, the control he exerted without ever stepping on her drawn lines of respect and honesty.

For a long moment, she hung between world, in a space free of responsibility and awareness. She drifted, nerves lighting on pleasurable fire, energy humming through her body. Between one second and the next. Between perception and reality. Ethereal. Limitless. Expansive and great.

When the ebb faded, she opened her eyes, panting, her hands still gripping his wrists. Han's face was held in a grimace, tension in his jaw. And yet, even now, even when she was sure he was fighting with every ounce against his own orgasm—he'd lasted despite her teasing, her hand, her mouth and now this, through what most beings considered their due—he had enough gall, enough Solo-brand arrogance, to mutter a strangled, low growl of _I win._

Her jaw dropped with a harsh exhale, and her body flooded with resumed desire. She could come again, she felt it with certainty. And in this war of attrition, he might have won a battle, sure. But she was going to take him with her if it was the last thing she did.

Quick as a whip, Leia slipped her left hand to Han's elbow and pulled hard, buckling his tenuous bracket above her. At the same moment she brought her right hand to the center of his chest and pushed, forcing him into a controlled fall to his right side as she weaved her left leg out of the way. With a startled huff, Han rolled onto his back and Leia scrambled on top of him, sitting on his legs and tossing her head to clear her loose hair out of her way.

"The hell—?" he gasped.

Leia leaned over him, put her hands on his chest. The last vestiges of her orgasm—the light, airy notes of pleasure—deepened, low notes of a new buildup, excitement over the idea of taking control again. She'd been patient enough with his antics.

"You've been rather obstinate today, Captain," she murmured, breathing harshly.

Han was on spectacular display in front of her. Flushed, his arms flung aside. She could feel the hair of his legs against the skin of her calves and the hollow in her stomach became ravenous. And his erection in front of her, too: proud and strong, so obviously desperate for her.

"Leia," he warned.

She lifted her eyes to his, gold and deep, definitely not pleading. Some kind of exhausted, laconic question there trying to triumph over a harrowing need for her that left her mouth dry.

"Yes?"

"Would you mind?" he said and waved a vague hand in the direction of his groin.

She cocked an eyebrow. "That depends," she said. "Do you surrender?"

"Surren—you're kidding."

She rose, put her weight on her hands and slid her knees to either side of his hips. Poised over him like a vanquishing warrior, she fought her smile. Han's mouth opened in obvious enthrallment, anticipation in every twitch and small expression.

"Admit defeat and all of this goes away," she murmured. "All the build-up, all the teasing."

His lips pursed in a grim line. "Hell no, I'm not gonna surrender. You crazy?"

She nodded. "That's what they tell me."

"For fuck's sake," he said, looking incredulous. "I won the race!"

She didn't answer and took the opportunity to toss the long curtain of her hair over one shoulder. She idly ran her fingers through it, waiting for him to capitulate, acting reasonable and patient when she felt anything but. The thrum of her desire for him, the long planes of his body and the fathomless strength of his mind ran through her veins like blood, like fire. She wanted him inside her again, wanted him lost in his own desire for her.

And since he was acting the obnoxious victor—a regression to Yavin-Han, the Han of mercenary loyalties and scoundrel temperament—she was going to act the pinnacle warrior queen of her past.

Han exhaled at her ploy, turned his head to glare at the corner of the cabin, mouth twisted. "We treat prisoners of war better than this."

 _That_ caught her attention. Oh, _petulance._ He was losing his cool. This boded well for her.

Determining that he needed a bit more of a push, Leia bent her knees, brushed Han's erection with her body. Just a slight weight, an easy glancing touch. Han's knees tensed beneath her and he tried to lift his hips into the contact. And then she rose back up, out of reach, frustratingly far from where they both wanted her to be.

"Shit," Han muttered. "Oh, _fuck."_

"Surrender."

She watched him with avid interest, hoping her eagerness didn't show on her face. This was a gambit on Han's desperation. If he hadn't breathed out that little _I win,_ she wouldn't have pushed him into any such admission. But Han just couldn't help himself. His ego, rightfully stroked, couldn't leave the moment alone. And it was so fun to make him playfully angry. He was an outwardly tough man—capable, brilliant, strong—but in this one case he was no match for her. And she _adored_ him for it.

"You want me," she whispered, almost a song, melodic. "You want me."

"No shit." He reached for her hips; she shimmied away from his hands. "Leia, c'mere _."_

"Imagine how good it will be," she murmured.

"Can imagine just fine, thanks."

She tilted her head, considered him. That last comment carried with it a sense of actual frustration, which was not her intention. And she'd always promised herself that she would be careful with him in situations like this, watch him carefully the same way he paid excruciating attention to her whenever he took control. Han's confidence in himself was astronomically strong, but anyone could be pushed past their limits.

She softened her expression and lowered herself against him again, trapping his erection between them. She leaned her chest against his and set her chin on the backs of her hands, watching him pull himself together, arranging the puzzle pieces of his desire for her. His breathing slowed, the heartbeat settled beneath her palms.

She waited for his eyes, the green-brown-gold finding her face with his typical stubborn light.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

This was important to her, the validation that the game was not _actually_ hurting him. What she was after was his pleasure. She loved to see him overcome, the pure joy at seeing the wonder and awe in his eyes and mouth when he found himself in her body. That was powerful, yes. It was powerful because she loved him with a ferocity of which she had never believed herself capable, not because she demanded control over him. She wanted him happy, and sated, and loved and cherished and adored the way a man so purely good should be. And she would do anything to make sure all of his needs were met, including stopping the game now if he needed it to stop.

He cleared his throat, lifted a hand to brush against the naked skin of her back. "Yeah, you're good," he whispered. "Just pick up the pace, huh? I'm dying here."

She smiled, leaned into him. Kissed him, brushed his tongue with hers, pure adoration in the contact. Light and soft, loving. Then she sat up and pressed her hands against his chest, fingers weaved into his hair. She tossed her hair back to tangle behind her, tickling his thighs.

She smiled: light, teasing and he responded in kind, happy grin slipping up one side of his face. His hands found their way to her hips, squeezed affectionately.

"A truce, then," she offered.

Leia lifted off his stomach and shimmied down. With a light touch she positioned him and slowly—so slowly, so unbelievably slowly—she lowered herself onto him.

A different feeling than the quick, heady rush of the last time he'd entered her. That had been driven and fierce, like breaking through a duracrete wall. She'd felt consumed and beloved in his ferocity, swallowed whole by the feeling. This in contrast was like walking a tightrope: tense, full to the brim with fluttery anticipation, utterly controlled but only just. Precipatory. Shallow and trepidatious in its own subtler way. She could feel him inside her, feel how he nestled within her like he'd been forged there, like this was his natural state. The blood pounded in her ears and she lost her breath, couldn't seem to control the soft hum that slipped from her throat.

Han seemed similarly affected. His hands gripped her hips just shy of too hard: kneading. Expand-contract. Expand-contract. Hypnotic, the way he struggled with himself, the way his eyes closed and he pushed the back of his head into the bunk, exposed the ridge of his throat.

She waited, hung on a precarious moment, let time slide through them like honey. Connected like this, pure intimacy, the most vulnerable they ever were and safe in that vulnerability all at the same time.

"Never gets old," Han mumbled. " _God._ "

Her fingers twitched on his stomach and the careless depth of his voice triggered her inner muscles to contract around him, pulling a groan from his lips like browbeaten, eager torture.

She whispered _yes_ and then began a soft rocking rhythm. His knees bent behind her and he pressed his heels into the bunk, offering his thighs as a kind of lounger. But while she was conspicuously maintaining Han's ideal rhythm to start—soft, rocking, before the energy flipped as it always did into something much harder, much less constrained—she was not about to lose the thread of the game entirely.

"Living up to your imagination?" she asked.

He cracked an eyelid and ran a hand down her left thigh. "Always."

She smiled and took his hand from her thigh and ran it to her breast, continuing to roll her hips. The tempo increased, the tightwire feeling dipping low in her stomach and branching out along her spine. Heat bloomed along her limbs and settled in her chest; sweat prickled the skin along her shoulder blades. Han's breathing changed as his fingers traced her nipple, as Leia switched from a slow roll to a quicker rhythm.

"Fuck," Han mumbled. " _Leia._ "

The sound of her name made her close her eyes, made her nerves light on fire. The divine sensation of him deep within her arched up her back. She felt the bud of her growing orgasm, a blinding thrill lost in the heat of the moment and fought to ignore it as she pushed Han further toward his own.

But it was growing, the small, contained galaxy within her, whirling at breakneck speed to a fantastic death. It grew and grew, consuming space beneath her skin, fighting the parameters of muscle and bone and blood. Soon she wouldn't be able to hold onto it any longer.

"Isn't it strange—?" she began but the words got stuck in her throat as her right knee slipped and drove Han deeper. The slight pain in her hip was nothing next to this new angle, corkscrew and tilted.

It felt good, _oh,_ it felt good …

"What?" Han croaked, picking up the thread.

Right. She smiled at Han, panting, flat on his back beneath her. "Appropriate posi— _oh, goddess._ Positioning."

He blinked at her, obviously slow to pick up details. She moved faster, threw a hand onto his shoulder so she could lean into him, her hair a living curtain around them as her hips tipped into a frenzied rhythm. He felt unbelievable inside her, and the quicker pace and the tilt in her pelvis seemed to push him deeper, hitting a very specific place, one that just needed …. A little more ….

"You're a good ride, Han Solo," she panted with the last of her control.

His body hit the place again, twice, three times, and she combusted into fire and color. Chaos ripped through her, a wide awake, sweeping, feverish cloud of sensation. She was lost, thrown to the four corners of the galaxy, the breadth of her sensations pulled tight like a blanket. She could see everything, past, present and future, the ions that slingshotted through time and space. The laws of the universe were nothing against this, the heat and the energy and the fulfilling, quasi-spiritual experience of Han inside her, wreaking havoc as only he could, as only _they_ could.

Her arm gave out and she tumbled against him. Boneless she felt herself flipped to her side, Han's hands on her thighs as he took control. Wordless and without coherent thought, she scrambled closer as he pushed into her at full capacity, opening the throttle and heaving groaning symphonies into her ear. He thrusted at maniacal speed, pressing into her with abandon, almost as lost as she.

Her organsm shimmered and settled as his hit him. He groaned against the shell of her ear, wrenching her hips to his as if to fuse her to him. His hands shook, his shoulders shuddered, and Leia could feel the tension in his torso as she held him with a fierce embrace.

All of it, all of it. The universe and everything in it, reduced to the taste of his sweat on her tongue, the utterly intoxicating feel of his skin on hers, his breath in her ear, so harsh, so desperate. Sight and sound without any meaning to her other than a warm contentment and the feeling of having found her place among the stars.

"Leia," he whispered. "Leia. Leia."

Her arms tightened around him, holding him close as he came down. The cabin seemed to cool around them, the air soft on her skin. Her heart slowed, the fire in her veins extinguished, the driving need to consume and be consumed calmed into a quieter adoration. The lines of permanence wavered; she felt herself tugged into sleep by the sheer enormity of her body's endorphinic response.

Han's weight shifted and he left the embrace of her body, rolled onto his back. He reached for the sheets and tugged them over their bodies, then pulled her to lie against him. His warmth, his breathing, the beating of his heart, all of him pulled her into himself. As intimate as what they had just done. Just different.

"I swear," he murmured into her hair. "You keep surprising me, sweetheart."

She spread her fingers wide on the skin of his throat, watched him swallow. "Good."

Leia lifted her chin, offered him her lips as his left arm wrapped around her lower back. And when he kissed her, it wasn't with need, or possession, or sexual desire. It was with comfort, and partnership. Understanding. Affection and friendship.

"I still won," he whispered against her lips.

She smiled and tucked her nose under his jaw. "You think so?"

He hummed, kissed her forehead. Leia closed her eyes, sleep tugging at them both, content and happy. _Until next time, Flyboy_ was her last thought and then she was swallowed by a calm and peaceful sleep she only seemed to find in his arms.

* * *

 **Author's Note:** Special thanks to AmongstEmeraldClouds for the double beta. Your reassurances and suggestions were most helpful and I am so thankful you were willing to read this monster scene _twice_ in the writing process. Any mistakes or awkwardness in this chapter are all on me: she probably warned me against the mistake and I was too stubborn to fix the damn thing. Thank you!


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